


Subtle Kindness

by Joyd



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5858563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joyd/pseuds/Joyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to remember the flickering of warm candle light in the cold darkness of your own Personal Hell, but it's all the warmer when you do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subtle Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt given to me on Tumblr earlier this month that I forgot to post.

It took her a while to realize it, as even thinking back on those dark days when she’d first been brought to the Order made her tear up, made breathing come harder and every muscle tense up in preparation to run. But being near Komui and the others helps to drive back the fear and anxiety, reminds her that things are better now, and she can think back on those days without feeling her heart seize in her chest. And being able to think back on that time with a clearer head, she’s able to notice things she hadn’t thought anything of at the time, too overwhelmed as she was at the time.

The days when a young woman with long blonde hair and a small monkey on her shoulder would come and sit with her, who would brush out Lenalee’s long hair and talk softly of the world outside her tower as she braided it carefully. Would tell her about her days in the circus, and some of the people she’d met and the animals she’d trained, or would talk about some interesting little town in the middle of nowhere she’d visited recently. Of the assortment of practical but nice gifts that slowly accumulated in her room, the soft, colorful blankets that piled on her bed and the beautiful hair brushes and ornaments that began to fill the surface of her untouched vanity.

Sometimes she can recall days spent listening to a big man with rough hands tell her about a country she’d never been to, a people she’d never heard of, and the stories and traditions they held dear, that he held dear, Before. He didn’t bring her gifts, sometimes he didn’t even speak, but his broad back and the way he snarled at anyone who made her flinch were more than enough, even in those dark times. Lenalee thinks of those times, watching him shout and antagonize his students and other exorcists alike, and wonders if he remembers them at all, that softer -not very, but a bit- side he showed a little girl so far from her own home and what she held dear.

Her walls were -still are, actually- covered in paintings of beautiful scenes she’d never witnessed herself. Colorful markets in unknown cities, blue skies over open fields, the ocean, bright and beautiful in the distance, so many others she can’t even recall them all. Tiedoll was a frequent visitor to her tower in hazy days of pain and loneliness, so much so that some of her memories seem to blur together. He talked fondly of his students, of the places they visited and the sketches he’d done of those few moments when they all let down their guards. She’d never tell him, but Lenalee still has a few sketches of Kanda when he was young, equally short haired and short tempered, just small, given to her whenever she mustered up the strength to ask the General about them. Daisya and Marie are in a number of them, too, but she doesn’t have to worry about Marie getting embarrassed and trying to make her get rid of them.

General Yeager’s visits are harder to remember, his death still too recent to be painless, but she remembers them fondly when she can bare to. He never spoke of his own time at the Order, or the Exorcists he trained or places he saw, always preferring to tell her about his first students. The classes of children he taught back Before the Order and the Akuma, tales about the ridiculous things they did and the fun times they had. Sometimes, if she was feeling up to it, he’d even give her lessons on things she was interested in, helping with her English or reading and writing, never pushing just supporting her as she needed it.

By far the most sparse memories she has are of long red hair, a mask with a cross over the eye, and fluttering golden wings tucked up close to her chin. Cross’ visits were even rarer than Winters’, but all the more precious for the time he did spend with her. He told her about his time in the Science Department of the Order, the things the people there got up to and the seemingly useless things they came up with. Sometimes, when she was in a particularly bad spot, he’d listen as she cried and cursed the Order, letting her squeeze Tim and vent her feelings, never interrupting, just listening. More than that, what she’d never admit but what she appreciated the most, is that he never tried to tell her otherwise. He never discouraged her hatred, never dismissed her anger and fear, he listened and, if he could, he’d answer her questions about why. He reminded her of Komui so much, even without her brother’s easy affection and sunshiny personality, that it was a comfort no one else could give her.

(Sometimes, those few times she’s seen them together, she wonders if it wasn’t Cross who hunted down Komui. If it wasn’t Cross Marian she has to thank for her brother’s return to her life, for helping him find her and getting him to a position that let him be by her side. Sometimes she’s angry at him, when she thinks of what Komui gave up to join her in the Black Order, but most times she’s just so grateful she could cry, if that didn’t always make him look like someone walked over his grave.)

The beginning of her time with the Order was cold, dark with pain and loneliness and fear, but there were small spots of light and warmth. Subtle, almost smothered by the hatred and rage, but there, and clearer in hindsight. She thinks, maybe, that the kindness of the Generals, those people who have even more reason to hate the Order and succumb to the cold, may be why she’s still here, still able to walk forward with her family by her side.


End file.
